World City Guide

Culture

Wales celebrates its ancient Celtic heritage at numerous Eisteddfod festivals around the country, although it is in the field of popular music that the nation has captured the worldwide imagination over recent years. Bands like Stereophonics, Catatonia, Super Furry Animals and Manic Street Preachers have achieved huge success. And more are on the way. Cardiff is the cultural capital of Wales, with top-quality venues, including the Oval Basin, an open-air auditorium next to Mermaid Quay, Cardiff Bay, which is designed for concerts and special events. Canolfan Mileniwm Cymru (Wales Millennium Centre) opened with great fanfare on the Waterfront at Cardiff Bay in November 2004 (tel: 0870 040 2000; website: www.wmc.org.uk), providing a new home for organisations such as Welsh National Opera (tel: (029) 2046 4666; website: www.wno.org.uk) and the Dance Company of Wales (tel: (029) 2046 5345; website: www.diversionsdance.co.uk).

Tickets to cultural events and performance can be purchased via the various venues, either online or by telephone. Once in Cardiff, visitors are able to purchase tickets in person from the box offices.

A good source of detailed information is available online at What’s On in Cardiff (website: www.metroplex.co.uk), which has links to many cultural venues and events taking place around the city.

Music: The male voice choir is an internationally acclaimed symbol of Welsh pride. Local exponents include the Côr Meibion Caerdydd – Cardiff Male Choir (website: www.malevoicechoir.net) and Côr Meibion De Cymru – South Wales Male Choir (website: www.south-wales-mvc.demon.co.uk). The latter is the largest male choir in Wales. St David’s Hall, The Hayes (tel: (029) 2087 8444, box office or 2087 8420, for recorded information; website: www.stdavidshallcardiff.co.uk) is the national concert hall for Wales and Cardiff’s main music venue and plays host to the biannual Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. The next event takes place in June 2005. Competitors in previous years have included world-famous figures such as baritone Bryn Terfel. The hall is also the performance home of the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales (tel: (0800) 052 1812; website: www.bbc.co.uk/wales/now). The Welsh National Opera (tel: (029) 2046 4666; website: www.wno.org.uk) now performs at the Canolfan Mileniwm Cymru (Wales Millennium Centre) on the Waterfront at Cardiff Bay (tel: 0870 040 2000; website: www.wmc.org.uk).

Theatre: The New Theatre, Park Place (tel: (029) 2087 8889; website: www.newtheatrecardiff.co.uk) was founded in 1906 and completely refurbished in the 1980s. It is now the premier venue in Wales for touring theatre and dance companies. Companies playing at the New Theatre in recent years have included the Royal National Theatre, Clwyd Theatr Cymru and the Northern Ballet Theatre. The Sherman Theatre, Senghennydd Road (tel: (029) 2064 6900; website: www.shermantheatre.co.uk) has a resident company and hosts national and international tour groups in its main and studio theatres. Maintaining the longstanding oral tradition in Wales, Academi (tel: (029) 2047 2266; website: www.academi.org) organises poetry readings and other events in Cardiff.

Dance: The new Wales Millennium Centre (see above) is also home to the contemporary dance group, Dance Company of Wales (tel: (029) 2063 5600; website: www.diversionsdance.co.uk), which commissions and premieres work from cutting-edge international choreographers, frequently touring Wales, the UK and abroad.

Film: Mainstream films can be seen at UGC, Mary Ann Street (tel: 0870 907 0739; website: www.ugccinemas.co.uk), Ster Century Cinema, Millennium Plaza (tel: 0870 7672676) and at the Capitol Odeon, Station Terrace (tel: 0870 5050007), as well as at the multiplex cinemas at UCI, Atlantic Wharf, Cardiff Bay (tel: 0870 603 4567; website: www.uci.co.uk) and Showcase, Nantgarw, north of the city (tel: 0871 220 1000; website: www.showcasecinemas.co.uk). The Chapter Arts Centre (tel: (02920) 304400) screens independent and alternative films at its Market Road centre in Canton. Bollywood productions are a speciality of the Galaxy Globe, Roath.

Films set in Cardiff range from the 1959 classic, Tiger Bay, directed by J Lee Thompson and starring Hayley and John Mills, to Human Traffic (1999), Justin Kerrigan’s portrayal of one wild weekend in Cardiff.

Literary Notes: The most famous writers from Cardiff are probably Roald Dahl, born in Llandaff in 1916, whose autobiography Boy (1984) touches upon his early years in the city, and Ken Follett, the best-selling writer of thrillers and historical novels, who was also born in the city. Dannie Abse was also born in Cardiff, as the title of his autobiography, There Was a Young Man from Cardiff (1991), suggests. Novels set in Cardiff city include River Out of Eden (1951) by Jack Jones, Glass Shot (1991) by Duncan Bush and Cardiff Dead (2000) by John Williams. The late R S Thomas, one of Wales’ greatest poets, was born in the city, although his later poems and were generally centred elsewhere. The poets Peter Finch, who penned Useful (1997) and Food (2001) and Gwyneth Lewis, author of Zero Gravity (1998), both hail from Cardiff.